[OSList] 1st OS tomorrow! - last minute advice re: client resistance?

[Jeff Aitken]

Hi Tricia,

you have a relatively small group (you have 14 right?) and a long os
meeting (you have three days right?)

with that length of space, i'd be confident that all the issues raised
will be covered well, and by the last day there easily can be
prioritizing and action planning and next steps.

i'd be confident that the agenda wall and marketplace process will do
what it does, allow them to organize themselves for the tasks at hand.

any participant can suggest that a posted topic be moved to a
different time, including the principal who wants to form them into a
priority list; but it's up to the convenor of each topic to agree to
move it. i explain this after the agenda wall is filled and they are
ready to approach the wall as a group.

I also explain that combining topics is ok, but again it's the
convenor who decides to do that or not, and sometimes it's best if two
similar topics are not combined but dealt with separately in more
depth. but it's up to them.

In my experience the length of time that a topic requires is handled
by the four/five principles of os. 'when it's over it's over' and the
corollary (which I always mention in the intro) 'when it's not over
it's not over.' sounds like you have an idea about handling the
situation already.

jeff
san francisco

by the way, one interesting thing i've encountered is when a
relatively small gathering looks at the agenda wall and someone
suggests 'let's stay together and address these topics one by one' and
people agree to do it that way. because I have let go at that point, i
don't want to intervene in their plan, but I now remind them that the
amount of time available for each topic has now shrunk because they
can't be done concurrently (and I suggest they write the new times on
the topics to make that visible.) not to add another thing for you to
think about, but i wanted to mention it.


On 2/11/13, Tricia Chirumbole <tricia at investorswithoutborders.net> wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> I am facilitating my 1st OPen Space tomorrow and lookingly heartily upon
> the challenges being presented as good learning opportunities, BUT....a few
> things are worrying me a bit about this particular circumstance....last
> minute advice or good juju welcome!
>
>
>    1. The focus is on "hands on skill transfer/learning among company
>    members" - I was comfortable with this, but it was revealed this
> afternoon,
>    in addition to having a number of things that people want to learn about
>    overall, the group has a number of urgent projects that need work done
> that
>    can't wait until we're done - so part of the idea was to make this a
> part
>    of the learning experience, which is great and I also felt confident
> with
>       1. BUT.....one of the principles is having a hard time letting go of
>       his top down mgmt and wants to include priority rankings for some of
> the
>       projects and is suggesting we need different lengths of time slots
> since
>       some items will require a deep dive - so I am worried about this
> added
>       complexity, former more than latter - I have ideas about how to work
> with
>       this, but am interested in ideas from those with experience.
>       2. Also, they have what I think is an exceptional amount of issues -
>       We all work in different cities, so today was a beginner's session to
> our
>       meeting, and they tricked/pressured me into allowing a brainstorming
>       session on the topic - which was great but revealed a HUGE list of r5
>       flipchart pages of items across only 13 people! In addition to
> the 3 pages
>       of project tasks.
>    2. I was even getting some push back on the removing of the table and
>    continued confusion...which is why I kept trying to tell them that it
> will
>    be explained in detail tomorrow and will become clear and simple....this
>    was all hastily decided upon with minimum discussion between me and the
>    principles...
>
> any advice welcome! Want to add that the one principle is very open and
> very deferential to me and the process, whereas the other one wants to be
> open, but keeps putting up roadblocks in almost every breath - they are
> great people and I think I can address these issues, but still a little
> concerned!thank you :_))))
>
> --
> Tricia Chirumbole
> US: +1-571-232-0942
> Skype: tricia.chirumbole
>